My attempt to make it to my 10 acres in Terlingua Ranch and make a go of living on it. From the start it hasn't gone good at all, but I'm hopeful things will turn around!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Resurrected & a few photos

With gas prices going as high as they are and problems off and on with the falcon I decided it was about time to resurrect the trike. I figured it would be a lot harder than it was because it hasn't even been started in months since Dale and Dwight were here the last time. One small motorcycle battery was never enough to start it so a couple of years ago I added a second small motorcycle battery to help out because there wasn't room for a larger battery within the frame area. Now motorcycle batteries are real bad about not lasting too long and both of the old ones were dead. They are also not good at being revived with the Epsom salt solution like I used on the golf cart batteries for my off grid needs. I had a car battery that I haven't doctored yet and it wouldn't start a car during cold weather so I decided to use it on the trike because it will start it fine. I lost my storage rack in the process though so will have to come up with some other place to haul cargo. I may build another small trailer to tow behind the trike? As with the falcon this desert is really taking its toll with the trike even with it never being ridden. BTW... John Wells calls it a Mad Max styled trike. What do you think???

Actually getting it started wasn't hard at all once I put the car battery on the luggage rack and wired it up. Matter of fact with a little choke it started right up. I had to add brake fluid and purge the brake lines to get the brakes working, but since I could reach the bleaders and brake peddle at the same time that wasn't a problem. I assumed that the road in front of here would be near impossible to ride it on in the deep powder areas and also figured that IF I could get through those areas I'd be covered in the powder, but after a couple of trial runs that wasn't the case. Looks like we will become an item again. ;) BTW the trike gets 40 MPG (City) and I've never checked it on the highway, but it will sure beat the 17 MPG (at best) that the falcon gets for highway.

I went through the DPS, DOT and county to get it titled as a home build bike.

The engine is basically the same type engine Orange county Choppers used on the Dixie Chopper without all the chrome added. Some people have told me over the years that I got the idea from Orange County Choppers and that Dixie chopper, BUT the fact is I built the trike as a bike at least a year before they built that chopper.

Well you asked for it and there is the ugly truth. You can see a better picture of it an more junk I've build back in the Monday, November 2, 2009 blog.

Dani, I have ridden in the winter, but don't like to. More than likely I'll mainly use it for short trips around here. Like trips to the mailbox, legion and so on. Even when I had it registered and street legal I never did brave taking it to Study Butte mainly because of the big steep winding road between here and there. I may have to try that though.

Thanks DD. I have a feeling gas prices are going to go up a lot before they go down. (If they go down) I saw a video on one of the Odessa TV stations where sales of bicycles, motorcycles and scooters are going up sharply. A bicycle sounds reasonable for cities and short hops, but down here with the mountain roads one would kill me so that's out. Guess I need to build an electric bike I can charge off of solar!

Frann, some things I'll just have to use the falcon for, but I can sure cut back trips in it by a good bit. I plan to start taking showers here again soon so that will help a good bit to cut down on trips for that IF I get enough groceries stocked up on the few trips I have to make. I am going to take the luggage rack off and put the battery where its at and then put the rack back over the battery so I can at least carry some stuff like ice and so on. I may even build another small trailer to pull behind it to haul groceries. If I do I'll have to over come my fear of taking it south. I'll also have to get it insured and registered again and there will go the savings on gas I guess. I guess its about time I get the welder out again.

Now... For the ice. a couple of days ago I bought two blocks of ice. I put one in a small Styrofoam cooler with a small amount of perishables and put it inside a bigger cooler with the other block of ice. My thinking was that the block in the small cooler would last much longer than th one inside the big ice chest. It hasn't! Both blocks are melting just about at the same rate and that shouldn't be happening. I'm starting to think they must be adding something to the ice to cause it to melt faster???

Glad it started up so easy for you, yes, you should get over your "fear" of riding it down South. I don't think it will be as bad as you think it will. The times I've ridden it up and down the highway there it always tracked well with good handling. I can just see you with a little trailer behind it running up and down 118, :-). I don't know what to say about the ice, it does sound as though it should have lasted longer. I don't think your registration and ins should eat up all of your saving either, not at 45mpg. I put a fuel management system on my bike when I put the true dual pipes on it, I got a lot more power, but lost about 10mpg in economy. I know, you can't have both! But I didn't expect to lose that much. I got the best mpg this last fill up than since I put it on, at 37.5. I wouldn't be unhappy with that, it sure beats the 33 I got right after though. Hope the winds lay down for ya.

Dale, the thing that makes the insurance higher on the trike is its home built. They treat it like kit cars, custom built choppers and the like. Still insurance should be under $150 a year for liability only. It shouldn't be over $75 for liability only if it was a factory made bike. Then of course registration was about $45 a year and I'll have to find someone who will inspect it to.

They got a real cool one cylinder chopper at the flea market for $2300 bucks ,, still too much for me and I aint riding a chopper on a dirt road out there. but still is cool to see all these home builts coming out all the time.

Nick, when the roads get 6 inches of powder on them NO bike is safe on them. Not even dirt bikes.

When I started building mini choppers Or should that be midi choppers I planned to make a business out of it. Unfortunately like everything else in the US china started exporting their cheap crap mini choppers to the US and at the time you couldn't sell American made ones and make money doing it. At one time after getting out of the AC field I was building and repairing computers. The same thing happened with that.